Are the New Orleans Hornets playing hard, or just telling themselves they are?

Periodically, the New Orleans media contingent will reference the 2004-05 Hornets. Always, it is a comedic genuflection.

Michael DeMocker/The Times-PicayuneLee Nailon was on the 2004 team that lost 64 games, but they never lost by 58 points.

Those Hornets chased the NBA single-season record of 73 losses, set by the 1972-73 Philadelphia 76ers, before settling for a team-record 64 losses. New Orleans was so bad observers had to laugh to keep from crying, so talent-less that all it could be credited with was an unwillingness to roll over and play dead even though it was firing water pistols in a gunfight almost every night.

But Lee Nailon, Dan Dickau, Bostjan Nachbar, Chris Andersen, J.R. Smith, Casey Jacobsen and Jackson Vroman played about as hard as they could. Hard enough that even they probably could've gotten together for a reunion tour and not have lost by 58 points, at home, in a playoff game.

So when Denver's Carmelo Anthony said he never thought anyone could win by 58 points in the playoffs, after his Nuggets annihilated New Orleans 121-63 on Monday night at the New Orleans Arena to take a 3-1 lead in the series, his astonishment was genuine. Too, it was understandable, because no team with Chris Paul and David West ever should lose by 58, under any circumstances.

Sure, Paul is banged up, his undisclosed injuries owed to a combination of playing Herculean minutes during the regular season and playoffs and of the Nuggets smacking him around like a pinata at every opportunity, letting him know that though he might get his numbers, he'll pay a price to do so.

Eliot Kamenitz/The Times-PicayuneHornets Coach Byron Scott can only watch how bad things were at the end of Monday's game.

And West doesn't look right, either. He averaged even more minutes per game than did Paul during the regular season and in the playoffs, Nuggets forward Kenyon Martin has been a mirror the likes of which West rarely has had to gaze into - a strong, athletic nemesis who doesn't bite on pump fakes, challenges every shot and knows every shortcut. And Martin has enough of a defensive reputation to be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to cutting corners.

But three-fourths of Paul and half of West should be enough to keep the Hornets from the most humiliating loss in NBA history.

New Orleans managed to play the worst home playoff game ever; at least the 1956 St. Louis Hawks, with whom the Hornets share the dishonor of having the largest losing margin in playoff history, did their fans the favor of crawling into the fetal position on the road. New Orleans, in fact, suffered the worst home loss in NBA history, period.

The footnote that it happened when the Hornets had an opportunity to even their best-of-seven series at 2-2 only adds to the ignominy of it. And it only highlights the fact that something is missing from the Hornets, and not just a wing scorer who can create his own shot.

No prideful professional team enters the history books the way New Orleans did. No team with a shred of dignity repeatedly takes punches to the mouth - and stomach, and kidney, and ribs - and offers no counter.

No team can lie down like that and, with a straight face, say it cared about anything other than getting a start on vacation. No team can lose like that and chalk it up to "one of those nights."

Is it legitimate to question whether the Hornets have quit on Coach Byron Scott? Should we wonder whether his message is being tuned out?

A couple of months ago, that line of thinking would've been ludicrous. At this time last season he was the NBA's Coach of the Year, poised to sign a contract extension, being celebrated throughout the organization and city for the turnaround he'd orchestrated. Scott oversaw the strip-down that resulted in the miserable 18-64 season. And he engineered the season in which New Orleans won a franchise-record 56 regular-season games and first-round playoff series against Dallas before losing to San Antonio in the Western Conference semifinals.

But the Hornets backed into the No. 7 seed in the playoffs this season, losing six of their last eight regular-season games. And they've lost three of four to the Nuggets in the playoffs, by margins of 29, 15 and 58 points.

Those numbers don't conjure images of a team that's playing hard or one that's interested in advancing.

And talent aside - and the Hornets obviously are lacking in that department compared to the teams they need to leapfrog in the Western Conference, and they don't have much flexibility to add desirable parts or subtract dead weight - the most important characteristic of a team is its willingness to play hard.

These Hornets can say they're giving their all, but the film and the results don't agree. And unlike the former, the latter two don't fudge.

At least the '04-'05 Hornets had a reason they didn't win. And at least they could say, with a straight face, that they were giving their all. Compared to what happened Monday night, the results that team posted aren't so funny anymore.